Our Kids Are Watching Porn

It’s a full time job staying on top of our kids’ online behaviours and preferences. Parents spend a considerable amount of energy controlling access and monitoring teen screen time, often in an effort to prevent access to sexually explicit material. Parents feel stressed and burdened by this responsibility, as we are always playing catch up to what content kids are seeing and engaging with online.

The research is out: Most teens have viewed online pornography. As parents, we have a responsibility to acknowledge that our kids are viewing sexually explicit material. Common Sense Media surveyed a demographically diverse group of teens aged 13-17 years in the United States in their report Teens and Pornography. The survey results showed that:

• 73% of teens surveyed have seen online pornography.
• 15% of teens said they first saw online pornography at age 10 or younger. The average age reported is 12.
• 44% have seen pornography intentionally. 58% have seen it accidentally.
• 71% of teens who have intentionally viewed pornography reported watching it in the last week.
• 63% of teens who reported accidental exposure to pornography also said they had been exposed in the past week.

It is clear that young people are encountering pornography even if they are not intentionally seeking it out. What we don’t know is how they are responding to what they are viewing, or how they are interpreting and making sense of the images and video that is presented to them.

We do know that cis boys (52%) surveyed were more likely to report viewing pornograpy than cis girls (36%). Cis refers to a person whose gender identity aligns with the sex assigned at birth. Rates of intentional pornography use were also higher among LGBTQ+ identified youth (66%). This may suggest that LGBTQ+ identified youth are relying on pornography for sexual exploration more than other teens. Moreover, LGBTQ+ teens reported a greater reliance on online communities and spaces in another study from 2022.

It’s imperative that parents talk to their children about pornography and what they are seeing and learning online. Teens are seeking out pornography to better understand their own bodies, their sexuality, and their sexual relationships.

• 45% of teen respondents felt that online pornography provides helpful information about sex.
• More than half of teens surveyed reported viewing violent or aggressive pornography.
• Less than half of teens surveyed had discussed pornography with a trusted adult or parent.

Talking with your teen about pornography has become essential as our world has shifted online. Aim to put the ‘pornography talk’ alongside other challenging but critical topics like sex, puberty, alcohol/drug use, and healthy relationships. Most teens that talked with their parents about pornography said that it encouraged them to find other ways of developing their sexuality. Parental influence and connection is critical for our kids’ sexual education.

How to Talk to Your Kids About Porn

Be Direct

• Don’t wait for the “right” or “perfect” opportunity. Tell your child that you want to talk to them about pornography because you know they will or have already come across it. You may have many of these conversations over time and that is reasonable and positive.
• Tell your child that pornography is acting. It is not real life or real sex. In real life, there are conversations about consent, safe sex (birth control and STIs), and pleasure. Porn doesn’t show the important conversations that arise before, during, and after sex.
• Tell your child that pornography does not show a diverse and healthy range of body types. Pornography often portrays norms and stereotypes around sex/gender and race/ethnicity that are demeaning, limited or offensive.
• Tell your child that pornography often portrays violence and aggression as a normal and enjoyable experience in sex.

Supervise Their Screen Use

• Parents need to implement screen use limits to prevent younger children and teens from accessing pornography accidentally. This requires parents to research, learn, and implement the parental controls on their child’s devices. As parents we need to become more tech-savvy.
• It is helpful if families can ensure that children are using their devices in public and common spaces at home.
• If parents or older teens are engaging with pornography, it is important that this is not shared accidentally with younger children or teens. Clearing browser history and being conscious of privacy is important.
• Keep phones out of bedrooms after bedtime.

Reach Out for Support

As parents, it is important to be thoughtful about what constitutes a healthy or unhealthy relationship to pornography. Not all teens that view or engage with pornography will be negatively harmed. However, pornography use can evolve to be unhealthy or an addiction for some young people.

If you have concerns regarding your child’s online activity, connecting with a therapist might help to sort through your worry and plan next steps. If your child’s online behaviour has increased or if their mental health and interpersonal relationships have changed, suggesting they meet with a therapist could be valuable. Kids express positive and negative feelings about what they see in porn and this can be confusing. If connecting with parents about pornography is too sensitive or vulnerable for teens, consider connecting your teen to a therapist or another trusted adult who can help them.

More research is needed to better understand the short and long term outcomes for youth who engage with pornography. However, at this time, it is fair to assume that the negative consequences of pornography exposure outweigh the positives. Until pornography depicts diverse, complex, and real humans engaging in safe, consensual, and accurate sexual experiences, parents need to be safeguarding children from pornography exposure. Monitoring our kids’ online activity and talking with them about their experiences in open, curious, and non-judgmental ways are our best tools for ensuring their safety.

References

Frank, Christina. “How to Talk to Teenagers About Porn.” Child Mind Institute.

Mann, Supreet (2023, Jan 10). “Teens Are Watching Pornography, and It’s Time to Talk About It”. Common Sense Media.
Robb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.

Thorn. (2023). LGBTQ+ Youth Perspectives: How LGBTQ+ youth are navigating exploration and risks of sexual exploitation online.